


Study: Broken Hills

by owlaholic68



Series: Fallout: Case Studies [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Senses, Short One Shot, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-03 21:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: One post-apocalyptic mining town. Five senses.





	1. Taste: Bittersweet

Carla grimaces. Rad-X is bitter, the small red-and-white pill sharp against her tongue, stinging her throat as she swallows it. But it’s better than radiation poisoning.

“You know y-you don’t have to, C-Carla,” Lenny says for the fifth time in five minutes.

She shrugs. “It’s fine. It’s nice and warm in here.”

He gives her a look. “That’s the-you know that’s the radiation, C-Carla.”

“Whatever. This whole town has my Geiger counter ticking anyways, so it’s probably best to be prepared. A little extra radiation resistance never hurt anyone.”

Lenny leans back in his chair, stretching. He basks in the radiation of the reactor like Goris basks in the sun, laying there for hours at a time on the roof of the car, content to soak up the sun’s rays, sparkling off his gray hide.

Brian, the power plant operator, looks askance at the two of them. A ghoul hanging out here: normal, not even worth mentioning. Broken Hills had plenty of ghouls, the majority of them working at the power plant or living in the vicinity. But a human? This close to the central reactor? But it’s none of his business, so he turns, humming a tune, and checks some of the dials and displays.

The edge of Lenny’s chair digs into Carla’s back. She shifts, resting her elbows on the squeaking plastic.

There’s a hum in the air, but she’s not sure if it’s just the whirring of the machinery or the faint thrill of radiation in the air. It tastes different in here, the air. Bitter, but not bitter like the Rad-X. Bitter like biting into a fresh fruit, and finding it just slightly too sweet. Bitter like dirt in your mouth, blood staining your tongue, gunpowder tickling your nose. Bitter like, alone, turning around and seeing something in the desert, something hulking and blocking out the gecko-orange setting sun.

“How does radiation taste to you?” The words come out of her mouth before she’s conscious of having thought them, bitter like an unexpected revelation or confession.

“Sweet,” Lenny whispers, barely audible above the hum of the reactor.

“Sweet like sugar, or sweet like…” Carla can’t think of a proper analogy.

He chuckles, a quiet sound that comes from his throat, light and gentle. “Sweet like-like the first a-apple pie of fall, like the- like the lollipops I u-used to give patients. Sweet like the- like first time I drank c-clean water after the bombs.”

Carla reaches up and takes his bony hand, his fleshless fingers intertwining with her own, callused, dirty. “Sweet like being here?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Sweet like b-being with you.”


	2. Smell: organic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mentioned minor character death, mentioned body horror (ghouls).

This almost reminds her of Hakunin’s garden, back in Arroyo. Leaves tickle her nose and her skin, making the hair on her arm stand on end.

It’s a smooth scent, clean. The dirt under her shoes is healthy; Carla can tell just by the smell: rich, wormy, wet. She’ll smell it tomorrow when she cleans her boots, scraping off blood and mud and things she doesn’t want to try and figure out. But that earthy smell, so different from the dry desert sand, will linger.

“Find anything yet?”

“No, n-not yet, C-Carla.” Lenny has cuffed his pants, his bare feet in the dirt, his toes sinking into the dark soil.

Carla ducks her head back down into the plants, down by the roots. A whiff of something fresh and fruity, subtly sweet, tugs at her nose. A few bright red fruits momentarily distract her. But she’s not here in this garden to pick fruit: she’s got missing people to find.

Her fingers hit metal, and she lifts the hatch with a satisfied grunt.

Another smell hits her when they’ve climbed down the ladder. The spicy pungent smell of giant ants, the tang of blood.

Of a _lot_ of blood.

She covers her mouth and nose with one hand, the other one rifling through the corpses’ pockets as quickly as she can. Lenny stays back; she can hear his shallow breaths rattling in whatever ribcage he’s got left.

The stench chokes her, sticking in the back of her throat long after she’s found what they’d been looking for, long after they’d climbed back up, long after they’d reported their findings to Marcus. Marcus, hours later, proposes his help, asks if they could use one more travelling companion.

He finds them in the vegetable garden, the hatch to the secret tunnels firmly closed. Carla’s got her nose shoved into a squash flower, her eyes half-closed. It’s a warm scent, earthy and sunny. Lenny’s laying down with her, his head in her lap, his eyes to the sky. Where his nose used to be is twitching, catching the scent of the mine upwind, the metal and the ore singing in his nostrils.


	3. Touch: Claustrophobic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of claustrophobia.

The glove of this set of power armor is scratchy, thin after too many repairs. Carla can feel the hard edge of the box she’s carrying, even through the synthetic fabric.

This isn’t her good set of power armor: she’d left that one in the trunk of her car, in case something happened and Lenny needed to come in after her. This set that hugs her shoulders like a friend is her Brotherhood set, centuries old and badly maintained. It chafes her elbows and knees, rubs wrong across her hips and burns strips of dry skin, despite the layer of her vault suit in between.

But it’s better than suffocating from toxic gas, so she’ll take the discomfort.

It’s claustrophobic too in here, and not just from the armor. She’s gotten used to that now, accustomed to the press of the suit against her body. She can feel her own breath against her skin. Her long hair tickles her face, her twin braids hastily shoved into the back of the helmet, thick black strands falling out and sticking to her neck. There’ll be marks there, later, after they’ve been pressed into her skin by the suit, tight and nearly too close to breathe.

This whole place is claustrophobic. The walls, shored up by pieces of wood and large rocks, close in on her. The tunnels bleed into each other, only the fresh corpses of mole rats under her feet indicating that she’s still moving forward.

The generator for the air purifier rumbles under her hands. She carefully takes out the replacement part from the box, the metal smooth and polished. It slots into place with a satisfying easiness.

Carla leans into a switch on the wall, the rusted metal resisting her at first before snapping into place. Good. Now she can finally get out of here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quest mentioned is "Fix the mine's air purifier".


	4. Sound: Cheers

“C-Carla, Carla, _Carla, Carla_!” Lenny’s repeating her name, his voice alternating between encouraging and panicked.

“Come on, Francis, don’t let this twig beat you!” Phil shouts from behind his bar, his gravelly voice carrying across the room.

Francis snarls, a guttural sound, his large green hand encompassing Carla’s smaller one. His growled curses and shouted insults against her fuels her adrenaline, ignites a fire in her veins. This is like the Jungle Gym, the shouts and the screams, her focus narrowing to the opponent in front of her, her own ragged breaths and pounding heartbeat echoing in her ears.

She grins.

With a thunderous smacking sound, an arm hits the table. And it’s not Carla’s.

She jumps up and screams, her other hand in the air. Lenny is also screaming in victory, or as close to screaming as he can get, rushing in to hug her from the side. Phil’s shouting something, disappointed, but also marveling at her prowess. Other _supermutants_ had lost against Francis.

Francis himself is silent, staring at his hand down on the table.

“Wow, girl, I’ve never seen an arm like that before.” He gets up and claps her on the shoulder, almost knocking her over. He hands her a powerfist, sparking and sharp. “You’re going to go far, pal. Use this well.”

“I will,” she replies, breathless, adrenaline making her dizzy. The noise has died down now, but it still faintly echoes in her ears, a reminder of her victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quest referenced is "Beat Francis at arm-wrestling", which if you've read my other FO2 fic that I recently put up, deals with the same quest, but a very VERY different ending...


	5. Sight: Sunrise

Carla pauses, hand on the door handle of the car. Lenny, confused, follows her gaze to the east, where light is creeping over the horizon.

She takes her hand off the handle, puts it on the hood of the car instead. With a grunt, she pulls herself up onto the hood, then onto the roof, giving Lenny a hand to get up too. She points, wordlessly, to the sky above the ramshackle roofs of Broken Hills.

The sky is a gradient of eggshell-blue and bone-white, flashes of yellow around the mountains, fluttering ribbons of orange and bright purple around the horizon, weaving in and around the houses. Clouds are slowly drifting across the sky, wispy puffs, promising clear skies for the day.

This warm light glints off the houses, off the metal accents and the lawn chairs set outside. The sign for the General Store, with its faded G and L, shimmers, the painted metal gleaming under the early-morning sunlight. Further away, the cacti in the residential area catch the sun, the sharp spines twinkling like silver jewelry.

Large swathes of light cut across the mountainside, signaling the start of a new day slowly dawning, inch by inch, taking its time. No need to rush these things.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you have any ideas of other Fallout (any game) locations I should do? Comment or find me on [Tumblr!](https://owlaholic68.tumblr.com/)


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